there stands a very embarassed and sad small person, with 2 toothbrushes hanging from her hair, tangled up at the roots, so tight that the brush heads are together and the handles are pointed away from each other. dangling. dangling.

on our way to mommy and daddy’s bedroom, we stop by the kids’ bathroom, where big brother pretends like ‘it’s all good’ and he’s ‘just brushing his teeth minding his own bidness’. i make eye contact with him and i nod towards his lil sis. “did you help her with this?”. he says “no”. i says “so you didn’t help her with any of it?”. and he says, frantically trying to cover his ass, “well, but, i only did the spraying, but SHE did all the SPINNING.”

thank GAWD the “spraying” involved detangler, however, something was definitely lost in the execution.

we walk into the bedroom where daddy is watching tv in bed. he watches his show as i slowly approach him, saying, “daddy, we need your help. she didn’t want to wake you but i said that you would know how to fix it.” he looks at me, wondering, and i add, “but just so you know, your son only did the spraying, but SHE did ALL the SPINNING”.

and then, his beautiful daughter walks sheepishly into the room, toothbrushes dangling, and he just busts up laughing. that sets me off of course, so we are just staring at each other ‘quietly’ but furiously cracking up, our faces red, tears streaming from our eyes, and we can’t stop. i have no idea how long we were laughing but we literally couldn’t stop, our daughter is just standing there, waiting, embarassed, sad. and then she says, “nebbur myn. i pix it by myself” and walks out of the room.

dear pain in my ass defender at my over-30 soccer game which i joined in order to have fun,

i have always been a fan of the game. i was put on a team as a wee lass, and it has continued to be a big part of my life to this day. there is always more to learn, on the field as a player and off the field as a spectator. i have a sincere appreciation and respect for the game and its players and fans. it is, after all, the greatest sport ever invented, in the entire universe. everbuddy knows dat.

support for this wonderful game depends on many people–those of us who truly love the sport, and, unfortunately, those of you who truly love to act like complete jackholes.

i tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, and i tried to teach you the rules of the game, but every time the ref made a call, or didn’t make a call, you questioned his authority. he explained a few of the calls to you and your team, but he’s a ref, not a schoolteacher, so there just wasn’t time to explain everything.

because i was marking you, i tried explaining the calls (or non-calls) to you (and your teammates) because i sincerely thought you were just trying to learn the game. if someone is trying to learn the greatest sport ever invented, you bet i’m going to try to teach them whatever i can. it raises the level of competitive play. it creates understanding of the game. the more you understand, the better you play, the better i play. i’d rather play against someone who is knowledgable and can challenge me, otherwise, what’s the point?

soon i realized that you were playing the game as if you didn’t know your ass from your head, and you were damned proud of it–rules?? shmools! there are plenty of em but who the f*ck needs em!

this completely insane and purposely blatant ignorance of any and all rules was appalling. you’re that kid on the playground that gets tagged and cackles, “nope, i ain’t ‘it’, ha ha HA! i’m just gonna keep on running and do whatever the f*ck i want because i’m a huge annoying IDIOT wheeeeeeee look at me shake my ass, i’m totally farting right now, it smells soooo good, ha ha HA!”

throughout and after the game, YOUR teammates were coming up to ME and “apologizing” for YOU and your shmattitude. you didn’t even shake my hand much less apologize. but if you HAD apologized for your shmattitude, i would’ve put my hands in the air and said, “whoa, you don’t need to apologize for your ‘tude, what you NEED to apologize for is your lack of SKILLZ wha-WHAT!”

let’s review: when you stick random parts of your body out and the ball luckily bounces off of you, it’s not considered a “pass” or a “trap”. you couldn’t learn to trap even if you were IN one. when the ball bounces off of you, and you look at me and smile as if you have something to be proud of, and that your proudness of yourself requires no words because i should know what you’re smiling about, it just makes you look like you’re wearing an even bigger ass-hat than you already were–you silly gangly sloth-person, i beat you at every foot race. when i run i leave my floppy clown shoes at home. all i could hear as i whizzed past your crooked horse teeth were comments from your teammates–“wow, look at that girl run, she’s fast”. and, after you caught up to me, and caught your breath, you still had the gall to talk smack about MY ass?? un-fucking-buh-lievable. take a look at the stat sheets you freak. i think you “won” a total of 3 (maybe 4) balls the entire time i was marking you, and that was because of shortcomings on MY part, not because you excelled at YOUR defensive game. the rest of the time i was taking you to school. and i’m not even that good. (newsflash, your report card came, it says you got an F in defense.)

anyways, where was i.

there were a couple of plays that happened. firstly, you blocked my teammate with your body and didn’t even go for the ball. my teammate called “obstruction” on you and you were like, “obstruction my ass, what the hell is obstruction, that wasn’t obstruction, why are you yelling obstruction!?”. and i said “because obstruction means you used your body to block her without going for the ball, it’s against the rules” and you said “chuh, what-eh-vur!” and ran off.

secondly, the next play it was you against me. i tried to get past you but i tripped over your floppy hoof and the ball ricocheted off you and you immediately got in my face and said, “what, are you gonna call obstruction on me again, go ahead, call it, call obstruction” and i said, “no, because that wasn’t obstruction, you didn’t use your body to block me” and you said “chuh! what-eh-vur!” and galloped away.

then there was a throw-in for my team. you yelled at the ref, “hey, they have a ton of players offsides ref, call offsides, holey crap, what, are you blind?!” etc and so forth. when the ball went out of bounds you asked the ref why he wasn’t calling offsides, “there were a ton of them, can’t you see them, they’re ALWAYS offsides”. and i said, “there’s no offsides on throw-ins”. again, you used your extra large vocabulary to snap “chuh! what-eh-vur!” and gallop off.

sometime after that, i beat you to the ball and sprinted toward goal and the keeper had no choice but to take me out. this is against the rules but it was just instinct and it was a soft tackle and he did apologize. he said he panicked and had to do it. (this was because you were ineffective at your j-o-b and he once again had to pick up your slack). no one got hurt so i was fine with it, but then out of nowhere, your stupid horse face appears (took you a few seconds to catch up to the play) and you proceed to once again push your shnozz into my personal air bubble just to heckle me and say “ha ha ha, how did you like THAT, huh!?” or something to that effect. your keeper is apologizing and helping me up while you continue to serve your signature smack sandwich. your keeper tried explaining to you why what he did was against the rules, and you said something along the lines of “what-eh-vur! she deserved it”. gallop gallop gallop.

then some random dude on the sideline asks the ref if he can sub in for your team. the ref had the decency to ask our team if we thought that was acceptable, which we did not, as we had less players during the first half of the game and 2nd half you had a player leave so we were playing 8 players to your 8 or 9 players. well, you threw your arms in the air and said “aw come on! just let him play! what’s the big deal! it’s just one guy! you guys are such whiners! your team whines too much! i can’t believe you won’t let him play! this is so STUPID! man, you guys really like to whine, you’re such whiners! just let him play, we’re just playing a friendly game! you won’t let him play, seriously?! oh my god your team is a bunch of whiners! i’m so sick of all your whining!”

and on. and on. and on.

the game commenced, without the extra player, and you were still complaining that we were a bunch of whiners, so i finally turned to you and said, “actually, if you listen carefully, the ONLY person whining RIGHT NOW and for the last few minutes is YOU, so why don’t YOU quit YOUR whining. you’ve been WHINING the whole entire game. if you’re SO tired of listening to WHINING, YOU have to stop. YOU are the BIGGEST WHINER here”.

and then you said, pointing your hairy wrinkly hoof at me, “YOU listen to ME, i’m OLDER than YOU, i’ve been playing this game LONGER than YOU’VE been ALIVE”, and then you pointed at me super a lot and opened your horse eyes wide and raised your horse brows as if to say, ‘you better respect, beotch’.

(and, i thought to myself, wow, YOU just burned your SELF and you THINK you just burned ME. interesting. nice work. definitely dealing with a psycho.)

so i sez, “well i’m SO glad i’m NOT YOU, because you ARE old, and if i were YOU, i’d be SAD, because you’re an OLD PERSON picking on someone YOUNGER AND SMALLER than you, congratulations, you know what that makes you, a big fat BULLY, that’s what you are, A BULLY” and i pointed at her as i ran past, eyes wide open with brows raised high and a nice smarmy smirk on my face.

and now, my favorite part. you yelled at me as loud as you could and lunged towards me, probably to make me pee in me drawers because you felt that you were pretty scary. all 5 feet 4 inches and 130 pounds of you. i might have peed my drawers but it was likely from laughing at you. i think you screamed something like “oh YEAH, well YOU’RE the biggest FUCKING BITCH blah blah BLAH!!!”

seriously, that was the best you could do? i’ve been called a biggest fucking bitch so many times in my younger, smaller life by people much more entertaining than you, please, don’t waste your best material on me. my own mother has called me that and plenty of other more colorful names, while trying to kick me out of her house, ripping my phone cord in half and jumping on top of me while simultaneously trying to strangle me. you can’t compete with that shit, trust me. i felt bad for you because i knew you were saving that particular morsel the entire game, building up to it so that you could whip it out and get extreme satisfaction from the climax of your dramatically stellar performance, bravo bravo, “real housewives of seattle” is FINALLY going to snatch you up at the next tryout. i’ll send them a letter of recommendation on your behalf.

it was just so perfect. you enunciated very well, and projected your voice–directly at the back of the ref. the ref turns around and blows the whistle to stop the game, tells us to split it up, and you’re STILL talking smack. then, because you’re a super classy gal, you immediately perform a foul, and as is custom, bitch and whine about it (because you haven’t learned any rules yet, even though you’ve been given at least 60 minutes’ worth of complimentary instruction), and i’m about to take the free kick, but i’m waiting for you to give me 10 yards. everyone and their brother is yelling at you to move back. the ref blows his whistle and tells you “she’s asking for 10” and you’re completely oblivious to everyone and just have your flaring horse nostils pointing at me, eyes glaring, like you’re about to charge me. you’re doing your weird “dance”, shuffling from hoof to hoof, saying “come on, kick the ball already, what’re you waiting for, kick the ball, you’re taking forever, what’s wrong with you, kick the ball already” and i’m just standing there rolling my eyes, they can’t roll back any farther, and you’re still heckling me. you look like a skinny bobbleheaded puppet with large fake wooden teeth, a marionette being made to look goofy and gangly and uncoordinated, i hoped i wasn’t paying to watch this show. the ref actually had to come over to you, shove you in a box and physically try to move you back. which you still didn’t do. it took a lot for me to refrain from kicking the ball directly up your shnozz. you can thank my therapist for that, she is obviously doing a smashing job.

you were still heckling me after the fact and the ref yelled at you, like a mama dog to his bad baby dog, “I ASKED YOU BOTH TO STOP, SO YOU NEED TO STOP” and you flapped yer yap and he said “BUT YOU WERE THE ONE WHO STARTED IT and I ASKED YOU BOTH TO STOP”. gee whiz. what do you want, a written invitation?

my teammate sensed that you and i were having severe domestic issues and offered to switch positions with me. i thanked her and said, loud enough for your horse face and teammates to hear, “great idea because i’m about to kick someone’s ass”. (get it, “ass”, horse, donkey…? no? too soon? aw, forget it.) i got some looks from your team that indicated they were taking me at my word. the new girl i was marking was careful not to stand too close. the thing is, everyone else on your team was so NICE. if they accidentally bumped into anyone, even if it was only a tap, they would still say “oops, sorry about that!”. i had conversations with several other players, the normal chit chat and joking around about this or that. you couldn’t have been any more annoying even if you’d tried.

in any case, i almost forgot why i was writing you this letter. you did everything you could to get a rise out of me, to push my buttons, and all after i’d had 2 super crappy days in a row. you were really testing my patience. this is something i’ve been working on during the past few years–trying not to lose my shit at the drop of a hat around assholes like you. you were a true test. not once did i take you out, nor did i drop any eff bombs–and no, i’m totally not fucking with you–i did not cuss, not a once, not a ever. that, my friend, is what you call ‘progress’. also, it is called, “i. am. so. AMAZING.” because god knows, i am always talking shit. and i mean, always. so. thank you.

please tell me you haven’t borne any children.

in conclusion, the next time we meet on the pitch, i give you this–my personal guarantee–i promise to make your life extremely difficult. i can assure you that my henchmen have also received the memo and look forward to our meeting.

(if you haven’t seen that movie, it has some great one liners. he literally is kicking his own ass in the courtroom bathroom and some guy walks in and asks what he is doing and that was his answer, “i’m kicking my ass”. i think he had his head in the trash and was slamming the lid on his face, after having run himself into the wall/stall door/mirror/etc.)

(my other fav line is when he is having a convo with his son who says “my teacher tells me beauty is on the inside” and jim carrey says “that’s just something ugly people say”. now tell me that ain’t funny.)

in any case, the moral of my blory today (get it? blog + boring story = blory. ha! i’m delirious! somebody stop me!) is, if you are ever curious JUST how OUT OF SHAPE you truly truly TRULY are, i would recommend relatively little movement for about 6-7 years followed by inserting an insanely wild hair up your ass that leads you to believe that playing a full 90 of soccer without subs is a “good idea”. it’s also fun to get all psyched up by watching hours of professional futbol games prior to actually participating, making you feel falsely energized and overly confident that you will, in fact, be “ok”.

i hydrated, i ate bananas, i did my stretches, i warmed up, and off i went to my doom. a few minutes into it, my body was saying “dear god NOOOOO!” while my mind was saying “woo hoo, no subs, i get to play the WHOLE GAME!” while at the same time the mix of euphoria and adrenaline was effectively masking any signs of massive self-destruction. just fyi, if you add a high pain tolerance, well, i can purdy much guar-ron-tee(!) the combination will actually really kick your ass.

“K.O.! FI-NISH HIIIMMMMMM!”

in the aftermath, my days were spent trying not to move, sneeze, blink, twitch, move, move, or move. yes, i know i repeated myself, but it is because i am putting an em-PHA-sis on the im-por-TANT parts.

a week later, even if you’re still hurtin’, i’d say, don’t listen to your instincts, just give it another go ol’ chap!

and, if it STILL hurts, so much so that you think you have probably pulled or strained or torn multiple “things” (muscles and such), and you can no longer continue playing, and you can’t even stand there and serve as a placeholder or a dummy, well, then, congratulations, you will finally have reached my level of fitness.

in any case, you just have to try it. quit cold turkey for just a smidge under a decade then strap on the boots and try to kick it old school. everybody’s doin’ it. stop bein’ a wuss.

ok, so you might not like what it is telling you, because it is more than likely the truth for most of us (including myself), but if you keep reminding yourself about his message (“his” as in “johnny b. truant”), more power to you. seriously.

by no means is this meant to be an easy fix, and by no means is it a band-aid, it’s just a blog that i appreciate because it really does tell the truth, and i do need to be reminded of it or else i end up overwhelmed, or underwhelmed, or stuck in a rut, when really there is so much more to this life, and, reading this blog also pushes me, it reminds me that if i work on what i really truly want to work on (even a little tiny bit each day or each week or each month), i CAN and WILL improve the quality of life for me and my family. i CAN make the living i want to make, i WILL create the dream life. i can create more free time to spend with family and friends. i can earn a living while working less hours. i can do whatever the eff i want to do. but only i can do it. and motivation is half the battle.

and, to keep me honest, i am happy to report that i have been working on a new children’s book. i’ve written the book and have started working on the illustrations, AND, i’m also working on the illustrations for another writers’ book. i get overwhelmed thinking about all the different projects i want to do but haven’t, then i get underwhelmed when i haven’t taken advantage of my free time to get anything concrete put together. but oh when i start working on something, even a teensie wheensie smidge, i start to get all giddy like a schoolgirl. now if i can just keep my own interest long enough, i’ll be bustin’ out multiple projects left and right, and you won’t be able to stop me, when i get in that mode, i don’t eat and i hardly sleep. which is ridiculous and i obviously need to work on that. but you get the idea. i need to get to that place for my sake and for my life’s sake. if i can continue working from home after both kids are in school while actually earning an income i can truly be proud of, well, that’s my long-term goal for sure. if i can earn enough to have the hubby home more often, well, more power to us. but i gotta start now.

i have other goals i’ve been working on, like my health and whatnot, and i’ll tell you right now, that’s been a pain in the pahtootie. teaching an old dog new tricks is not just a saying. but now that many of those glitches have become more a part of my natural rhythm, it frees up some time and energy for new projects, like my artwork and books. it’s amazing how much more functional you are when you overcome an obstacle. no matter how big, no matter how small, they all sit like an anvil on your shoulder and keep you rooted in place. some of us get tired of the weight, and others choose to go down without a fight. well, i got tired of the weight. there are others who have chosen to go down with it, and THEY were a part of the weight that was pulling me down, but they don’t respect themselves enough to try to resolve their situation, and claim that they are destined to ride this crazy train until it crashes to bits in a fire-y inferno. so i could either continue to get pulled into their universe or take the next spaceship outta town.

it hasn’t been easy, but it isn’t supposed to be easy (it ain’t “staples” for gods’ sakes). so either you put up and shut up (if you choose to do this, you’re not allowed to complain, to be a martyr, nor are you allowed to claim that you have no choice–because YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE, in fact, there are always multiple alternatives in every situation–AND you also have to take full responsibility for your situation and fully admit you are the source of your own stupid misery), or you start demanding the life you want, and you take charge. no more excuses. there is no reason why you can’t have peace of mind, there is no reason why you have to deal with bullcrap from your boss, your spouse, your dog, or yourself for that matter. everyone deserves to be here and to be truly happy.

surround yourself with people who support you. keep the others at arms length and don’t get pulled into their universe. you have your life, and they have theirs.

the last time we played in mexico was probably the most mas grande burrito sized can o’ whoopass you had ever seen. last night, we were going for a tie, or at least a small goal differential in the case of a loss–and, yes, we lost by one measly goal. so basically, we succeeded.

but let me tell you why i’m pissed.

(i said i wouldn’t use this blog to bitch about soccer but i didn’t pinky swear and i only said it to myself–no one is here to hold me accountable so you might as well get comfortable cuz ur about to hear my rant!)

anyone that has played soccer knows that there are variables. the playing surface, the weather, injured players, etc–and these are all things you consider before the game and plan for or adjust for accordingly. when it comes to which team your playing, and where, those too are very important factors to consider and you need to be able to adapt.

if you’ve ever played soccer before, and i KNOW these guys have, but i’m just saying, in general, if you’ve ever played soccer, and you’ve been up against a mexican team, you KNOW how they play. they don’t play like us. and they’re certainly not going to ref like us when we’re in their stadium. they’re intense, they will rough you up, they like it when you retaliate and they can rile you up, it’s all part of their game. your job is to keep your composure, up your intensity while still playing as a team, rough them back. but for the love of god you can’t give them any opportunity to injure you, because they will, you can’t expect the ref to coddle you, because he won’t, so just get out of their freaking way if they’re coming for you, use your finesse and dribble around those bitches, and, don’t let them mess up your game. don’t give the ref any reason to call a foul. the ref doesn’t care who started it, the ref doesn’t even care who retaliated first or second or third, the ref is not your friend when you’re in a different country playing a team like mexico. neither are the line judges so i don’t know why you’re even trying to wave your arms at them to get their attention.

when you are the visiting team, you are going to deal with a lot of unfair shit, get over it, i swear to god, how old are you, you’ve worked your way to professional soccer and you still can’t understand that if you play a mexican team on their home turf that you’re not going to get the calls, really, seriously, because i’ve known this since i was in kindergarten when i started kicking balls. you people are killin’ me.

just play your game, stay alert, don’t look to the ref to save your ass, don’t expect a fair game.

in fact, who cares that it was mexico in mexico, who cares that the ref was inconsistent and made some really horrible decisions (i’d say he made some really horrible “calls” but sometimes he didn’t call anything when he should have and vice versa), who cares about the variables–one of the unwritten rules that was always a given when i was growing up and learning the game was, the play ain’t over til it’s over. so, goddammit, that game could have been a big fat goose-egged TIE if you whiners would have kept playing instead of just stopping and flailing your arms trying to get the ref to make the offsides call. you are well-seasoned players with oodles of experience and yet you stop playing and basically just let the mexicans score the winning goal (the most boring goal-scoring slow-mo replay EVER) even though you know all the freaking variables in the world are against you. seriously? i couldn’t believe it. it is going to really piss me off if you do that ever again. don’t ever, ever ever ever, stop playing. ever. EVER!!!!

and another thing, what the hell was UP with people clearing the ball by kicking it super wimpy-like and usually to one of the mexican players or out of bounds? anybody else think it might be a great idea to either kick it to someone on our team or actually clear that stupid ball the way it’s supposed to be cleared? as in, if you’re gonna clear it, then clear the muther effer. jesus. it was like your legs were limp and your feet were made of jell-o. clearing the ball is very easy, you just kick the shit out of it.

it’s the little things that need tweaking. like the way you gotta up your intensity and put some goddamn pressure on the other team when they’re all in your grill and playing for blood. they had anywhere from 2 to 5 players if not more swarming any ONE player on our team that got the ball. we gotta work on having a really tight first touch, and our one touch passing, our triangle passes were almost non-existent, we gave away a lot of balls. we let mexico take charge and dictate the pace from the start. we need to muster up some confidence, up the energy, and play our game, the whole 90+ minutes.

with all that said, yes, 1-0 is a great final score against mexico. we had some terrific saves and passing plays and defense, and we’ve got awesome new players in the mix, it wasn’t a horrible game but it could have been that much better if we’d just been more mentally prepared. who was the captain anyways? i didn’t feel like there was a whole lot of leadership on the field and i was really frustrated with evans and also sometimes gspurning even though he saved our butts in the end. the honey badger was as impressive as ever. we have a lot of strengths and this season is going to be really exciting. but i’m a hardass when it comes to soccer, because i love this game, and i’m that authoritative perfectionist insanely protective asian parent when it comes to our seattle teams. but it’s only because i KNOW they can do better. when they get a B, i get pissed because they could’ve gotten an A. and when they get an A, i’ll still be pissed because i know they can get an A+ and extra credit to boot. in any case, really proud of their asses and can’t wait to see what they come up with in their 2nd match against mexico.